Webheads

This is a collection of texts and accompanying images created by users that you can use for ESL/EFL activities. Have students create and add their own digital stories connected to a theme or short story they have searched for and read. You can also search by a key word, such as a grammatical term they are studying (e.g., "used to"). Thanks to C. Arena.

Phone to Mac copies music, photos, video, and more from iPod, iPad and iPhone to your desktop. This transfer software will help you get your older Mac (up to 10.6) or Windows PC in touch with your mobile life. Download the app to your desktop computer, install, and plug in your mobile device.

You can put a question up on the website and then students reply with their webcam. It's a nice tool for oral language practice, digital storytelling, debates, etc. R. Stannard shows how to use the tool and suggestions for lesson plans. He notes that you will need a fairly fast internet connection. The site allows you to keep statistics on who answered.

This is a series of low-cost ($1 U.S.) podcasts about various topics in multimedia uses for teaching. The topics include narrated slideshows, telling a digital story, using smartphones, quick edit videos on the iPad, and creating multimedia ebooks. W. Fryer is the author of Playing with Media, also relatively low-cost for ebooks.

This site creates several kinds of activities and games: interactive map, riddles, fill-in, crossword puzzles, dialogue with audio prompts, dictation, jumbled word or sentence, matching, word search, and quizzzes. You can store your creations for repeated use. Thanks to D. Gonzalez for sharing this.

Check out the extensive list for topics of interest to EFL/ESL teachers. These are interesting and professional-looking, each about 30-40 min. on embedded video.

"Create and share great video lessons with your iPad or browser." This is a great tool for getting students talking, or for creating a lively presentation. You can upload a picture, or draw from scratch, as on a blackboard or whiteboard. Easy to use, free download, and available from the App Store for smart phone or iPad.

Several suggestions for teaching short poems, and websites with author interviews and poetry readings. Learning how to write poetry will help students appreciate the language better.

Conversation starters and short reading passages for efl/esl classes

Conversation starters

The author compares 10 bookmarking and annotating tools, such as Diigo and Scoop.it, Pinterest, etc.

A helpful guide to using Wikipedia and other resources for beginning researcher-students. Also mentions EducationWorld and the use of search engines.